Commodity chemicals useful for making plastics, rubbers, coatings, additives and fuels are often produced from petroleum-based sources. For example, butadiene is used in the manufacture of synthetic rubber; however, butadiene is commercially produced as a by-product of ethylene production from steam cracking, in which the crude C4 stream is fed to extraction units where butadiene is separated from other C4s by extractive distillation. Butenedioic acid is another example of a chemical, useful in the manufacture of various polyester resins, surface coatings, lubricant additives, plasticizers, copolymers and agricultural chemicals; however, butenedioic acid is typically derived from the hydrolysis of maleic anhydride, which is produced by oxidation of benzene or butane.
Due to increasing petroleum costs and high greenhouse gas emissions from the petroleum-derived carbon content, however, recent efforts have focused on developing bio-based chemicals that are at least partially derived from renewable sources. Thus, there is an ongoing need in the art for processes to produce chemicals, such as butadiene and butenedioic acid, as well as their intermediates, from non-petroleum sources on a commercially-viable scale.